Two of the craft ran ashore and were captured; the other nine got off clear. When the three batteries erected on the summit of the Sierra opened on the castle, the walls began to crumble at once. At the end of eight days its front towards the French trenches was a mass of shapeless ruins. Carbon then surrendered, without waiting for an assault, which must undoubtedly have proved successful. There was nothing particularly obstinate, or, on the other hand, particularly discreditable, in the defence. The castle was not a modern fortress; its sole strength had lain in its inaccessible position; and when the French had climbed up on to a level with it, nothing more could be done. Having mastered Lerida and Mequinenza, and obtained a firm footing in the plain of Western Catalonia, Suchet had now harder work before him. His first necessity was to clear the country behind him of the insurgents, who had swarmed down from the hills to attack the troops left behind in Central Aragon, while the main army had been concentrated before Lerida. Villacampa had half destroyed a column of 350 men at Arandija on the Xalon on May 14. Catalan somatenes had attacked the garrison of the valley of Venasque, on the very frontier of France, on May 16. Valencian bands had besieged the castle of Alcañiz for many days. But all the enemies of Suchet had to fly, as soon as his main army became once more free for field service. No attempt was made to oppose a serious resistance to his movable columns: the insurgents fled to right and left: the most extraordinary proof of their demoralization was that, on June 13, General Montmarie, at the head of one of these columns, found the strong fort of Morella, within the Valencian border, absolutely unoccupied. He seized and garrisoned it, knowing that this place, which commands the mountain-road from Aragon to Valencia, was of immense strategical importance.